A Deal for the Di Sione Ring (The Billionaire's Legacy 7)

He stripped off his shirt, then the rest of his clothing. Mina’s eyes grew wide. How was this going to work? It couldn’t work.

He came down on the bed beside her. Brought his mouth to hers. “You were made to take me,” he murmured against her lips. “I promise you, Mina. Trust me.”

She did. Her mouth softened beneath his, her body slackening under his caresses. His hands left her to roll a condom on, his jerky, quick movements telling her how much he wanted her. Then he was between her legs, sliding her knees further apart and moving his hand beneath her bottom to cup her buttock. Palming himself, he lifted her and brought his huge shaft to her core. Mina closed her eyes and waited for the pain. Nate played with her instead, getting her used to the feel and pressure of him.

When she could take it no longer, she arched her hips. “Nate. Per favore.”

His ebony eyes flashed in the dim light. “You want me, baby?”

“Sì.”

He sank into her just enough to stretch her body. Waited while she accommodated him. When she raised her hips for more, he gave it to her, watching her face the entire time, making it such an intensely erotic experience she forgot her fear.

She arched her hips again, took more of him in until she felt a pressure, a resistance. “A little bit of pain and then lots of pleasure,” he promised huskily. She nodded and grabbed a handful of sheet as he surged forward and broke through the barrier. A searing pain lanced through her. She breathed through it, Nate holding himself completely still. Then the pain was fading and she felt only full, stretched by his virility. Possessed.

“Okay?” His dark eyes were glazed with the effort it was taking him to hold back.

She nodded. Forced her limbs to relax as he started to move, ever so slowly as her body softened around him. Discomfort turned to pleasure as he stroked every nerve ending inside of her, filling her, then withdrawing. Her hips started to move, demanding more. Nate’s gaze burned into hers. “Good?”

“Sì. So good, Nate. I had no idea it could be so...good.”

“I told you,” he said, taking both her buttocks in his hands now as he brought his mouth down on hers, “your beautiful body was made for me.”

His words did something to her insides. Dissolved her into a pool of lust as he stroked deeper. But it was more than that. He might not see the connection between them but she did. It was special. Powerful.

She arched her hips and took him deeper. Begged for more against his mouth. He made her say his name as she begged, filling her deeper, harder. Again and again until she was burning up. His hand at her buttock angled her, then as he moved even deeper, touched a place inside of her that promised pleasure like none before. She bit into his lip to urge him on. Nate growled and surged harder inside of her. “I need you with me, baby. Can you feel that?”

“Sì. Oh, Nate.”

He drove into her then, the animalistic, desperate pace he set stirring her blood to a fever pitch. She matched him stroke for stroke until he hit that spot inside of her and tore her apart, her orgasm so intense she buried her fingernails in his thighs.

His big body tensed, then shuddered against her, his hands clamping hard around her buttocks. When he was finally still, he rolled over on his back and brought her down on his chest. Slowly her world righted itself.

She kept her eyes shut. Wanted to memorize every detail, every minute of what had just happened, it had been so perfect.

* * *

Too restless to sleep after that mind-bending experience taking his wife’s innocence, Nate left Mina sleeping and ordered them a light meal in case she woke up hungry. Then he took his laptop back out to the terrace to work.

Resting his head against the back of the sofa, he watched the play of the light on the water. It flickered like flames lapping the blue-black canvas that surrounded him. If he’d anticipated bedding Mina would be more about him ensuring her first time was good for her, he had clearly underestimated his wife’s effect on him. How every inch of her inflamed his senses. How every innocent, passionate response to his lovemaking had pulled him deeper and deeper into the web she’d so effortlessly spun around him. Into the incandescent spirit that was Mina.

To go through what she had and emerge with such strength, such belief in the world around her, was remarkable to him. The survivor in her was just as sexy to him as the delectable packaging.

The distant roar of a jet taking off brought his head up. Pierced the almost eerie stillness around him, forcing his brain to admit the truth along with it. He couldn’t call what they’d just done sex. Even a man hell-bent on deluding himself would be a fool to make that claim.

He felt something for Mina, something he’d never felt for a woman before. It went beyond the protectiveness he’d initially felt for her to a place deep inside his chest. A place he’d long ago marked forbidden for him.

He knew what it was like to allow yourself to feel, to want things you couldn’t have. Because contrary to what his grandfather thought, what Mina had accused him of, he had made an effort to connect with his brother Alex. He had sought him out, made tentative overtures when he’d begun his tenure at Di Sione Shipping, thinking they had been similar animals—wounded beasts who had made themselves into warriors. Perhaps to attempt to put his and his brother’s dark past to rest. Only to have Alex shut him down cold. As if he wasn’t good enough to breathe the same air as him.

His fingers tightened around the steel casing of his laptop—the tool he used to command an empire built brick by brick by his need to prove none of it mattered to him. That he could shine the brightest.

Some days he managed to convince himself it was true. On others, his past ate away at his insides, slowly but surely corroding his soul. The price he paid for choosing the life he had.

The smoky trail of the departing jet dissolved into the sky, a wisp of gray against black. Mina’s dark, dark eyes as he’d taken her filled his head. The wonder in them at what they created together. He was playing a dangerous game with her. He knew it. As inevitable as it seemed, the rules he’d insisted on seemed more important than ever.

He had nothing to offer Mina except what his tutelage and position could provide in the way of a successful transition into a business career when their year was up. Some other man would give Mina the happily-ever-after she craved, the unconditional love.

Confining himself to the mutual satisfaction they’d promised each other was the only way forward. Or he would break her heart. Not an option when his wife’s heart had already been shattered one too many times.